Iranian hackers leave bouquet in car of Israeli nuclear scientist

The group of Iranian hackers known as Handala have followed up on its operatives’ success in accessing Israeli nuclear facilities and secrets in September – by leaving a bouquet of flowers in the car of one of Israel’s nuclear scientists.

The group targeted Israel’s nuclear programme after the occupation murdered a number of Iran’s civilian scientists before and during the so-called ‘twelve day war’ earlier this year – but Iran’s tactics have been considerably more humane. The September penetration saw the spies taking Israeli data and filming inside nuclear facilities and the new one last weekend involved… a bouquet of flowers, albeit delivered in a way to strike fear into a regime that habitually considers itself immune to consequences.

Iranian hackers hit back

As Skwawkbox reported for the Canary previously:

In an unprovoked attack in June, Israel killed one of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists and at least eight of his colleagues, despite US intelligence assessing that they were involved only in civilian nuclear power projects. The assassinations followed years of similar attacks by Israel on Iranian soil.

This time, the Handala group bypassed Israeli security and left the bouquet in a vehicle they claim belongs to Dr Isaac Gertz, who works at Israel’s Sorek nuclear research facility and its Saraf accelerator, along with a card reading “Rest in peace, dear Isaac”, then published a photograph of the bouquet with a message that:

We walk in your streets, breathe your air, and stand in places you believed were impenetrable.

Yesterday you received our bouquet. A harmless object at first glance. But you noticed its weight, right? You felt the presence behind it, the hands that carried it, the footsteps that vanished a moment before you opened the door. Tell us, Dr Gertz, how is your car?

The group also released names and phone numbers of personnel in the Israeli military’s ‘Unit 8200’ Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) unit – confirming that Iran has accessed Israel’s most sensitive data around its nuclear programme and has undercover agents in Israel.

Featured image via the Canary